It is cold. They go into Florian’s and find an empty table. They order cappuccinos. The cappuccinos arrive, large cups with generous, creamy froth sprinkled with chocolate powder. They sip them. Jomier laughs at the moustache left on Judith’s upper lip. She laughs too, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. Most of the others in the cafe are, like Jomier and Judith, North Europeans or Americans of a certain age. They do not mind. They are happy, away from their judgemental children. They finish their cappuccinos. It is time to move on. Jomier calls for the bill. He hands the waiter a €50 note. There is scant change. Jomier puts the receipt into his wallet.

Jomier now leads Judith across the square to the Museo Correr. Judith asks whether, given the artistic treasures that are available in the churches and galleries of Venice, they really want to look at a display of pottery and local costumes. ‘Wait,’ says Jomier. He leads her past the display cabinets to one of the paintings hanging on the wall, Carpaccio’s Two Venetian Women. ‘Ruskin,’ he tells Judith, ‘thought this the best picture in the world.’ They stand looking at the Venetian painter’s depiction of pigeons, a peacock and two old whores.

‘And you?’ asks Judith.

‘What?’

‘Do you think it is the best picture in the world?’

‘No.’ He laughs. They leave.

‘Let’s go to the Accademia,’ says Judith, taking Jomier by the arm. She talks with a familiarity that suggests she knows Venice as well as, if not better than, Jomier. Both have been there before; both want to impress the other with their familiarity with La Serenissima, but both are reluctant to go into detail of their previous visits because they had been in the company of former lovers – or, in Jomier’s case, a wife. Jomier is also reluctant to admit that his previous visit was thirty years before, or that his knowledge of Venice comes from guidebooks and the Internet, not a cosmopolitan persona. The little restaurant behind the Fenice; Ruskin’s ‘gem’ in the Museo Correr . . . Why did he feel he had to pretend to Judith that he knew his way around Venice? Why do men feel that they have to impress women? Why do women make men feel that they have to impress them?